Paul Rudd Asked for One Change to A24 Movie

Friendship writer-director Andrew DeYoung is flattered to hear that his feature directorial debut evokes comparisons to What About Bob? and The Banshees of Inisherin. The black comedy chronicles working stiff Craig Waterman (Tim Robinson) as he befriends his local weatherman neighbor, Austin Carmichael (Paul Rudd). The unlikely duo become fast friends until Craig takes a casual garage-set boxing match too far, alienating Austin and his other buddies. Craig then refuses to accept the rejection so he resorts to increasingly desperate acts to make amends.

DeYoung, who wrote the Craig Waterman character with his friend Robinson in mind, was inspired by his own experience trying to make a new friend during adulthood.

“It was less of a breakup and more of a desire to hang out with a person that wasn’t received in the way I wanted it to be. I caught myself getting pissed off that the person didn’t respond to me,” DeYoung tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Friendship’s May 23 wide theatrical release. “I then thought my reaction was pretty pathetic, and I was like, ‘Oh, this could make a good comedy: a middle-aged man trying to be friends with another middle-aged man.’” 

DeYoung’s film partially overlaps with Rudd’s 2009 comedy, I Love You, Man, in which his character, Peter Klaven, tries to develop a best friend in record time in order to have a best man at his wedding. In the case of Friendship, Rudd is now playing the free-spirited, cool-guy character that Jason Segal portrayed opposite him 16 years ago. DeYoung’s A24 release also has another aforementioned similarity to Rudd’s past work in that Austin is a local newsman à la his Anchorman character, Brian Fantana. 

Tonally, all three films couldn’t be more dissimilar, and so Rudd was largely unconcerned with any parallels, except for one particular item.

“The Austin character’s original name was Brian. Brian is the name of his Anchorman [local newsman] character,” DeYoung says. “So when Paul signed on, he was like, ‘Just to avoid any crossover or confusion between the two, can we change it?’ And I was like, ‘Sure, that’s fine.’ And then he came up with the idea for the name Austin.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, DeYoung also discusses the surreal response to the film’s 2024 premiere at TIFF and why he’s confident the theatrical comedy is on its way back.

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You’ve directed a ton of comedy on television until this point. Assuming you always had feature ambitions, did you just decide to make your own luck at a certain point? 

Yeah, I moved to L.A. to make movies, and in the process of making shorts and stuff like that, I got pulled into TV, which has been really nice for me. But, yeah, making a film has always been the number-one goal.

Your own friendship breakup inspired this tale? 

It was less of a breakup and more of a desire to hang out with a person that wasn’t received in the way I wanted it to be. It was a low-stakes thing, but I caught myself getting pissed off that the person didn’t respond to me. I then thought my reaction was pretty pathetic, and I was like, “Oh, this could make a good comedy: a middle-aged man trying to be friends with another middle-aged man.” So that’s where it ultimately came from, and I just started writing things until it eventually became the script.

A24 acquired Friendship not too long after its TIFF premiere. Did you write the film with their type of sensibility in mind?

Not at all. I don’t quite know the A24 sensibility, but of course, I am a huge fan of theirs. It’s a dream come true that it’s working out in this way, and they’ve been such incredible partners. So I just wrote a movie that would make me and Tim laugh, and I feel like that’s enough to bet on.

Paul has another A24 film [Death of a Unicorn] in theaters at the time of this conversation. Did he play matchmaker at all?

Not that I know of. The official story was Sam Hanson, who’s a producer at A24, saw the film at TIFF, and 20 minutes into it, he texted everybody that they should buy the movie. So that’s the story that I’m choosing to believe, but who knows what went on.

As I was watching, I kept thinking that the Craig Waterman character must have been written for Tim Robinson, and that turned out to be the case. The character is just so peculiar and offbeat in a way that only Tim can capture. How much of Craig’s off-kilter energy is just Tim’s natural mode?

That’s a great question. I was about a month or so into writing when I started to write the character for Tim, and he had no idea. But I wrote it for Tim because he’s an incredible actor who is so funny, and he brings so much emotion to any character he plays. So I wrote it toward his strengths and abilities, and while I don’t know if that answers the question, I certainly knew that he could bring a lot to it that was different from other comedies. I just wrote towards those hopes.

Paul Rudd is obviously no stranger to comedies involving local news and male bonding. Was the overlap with I Love You, Man and Anchorman a barrier for him at all? 

We didn’t go into it too much. The Austin character’s original name was Brian … 

Terrible name.

(Laughs.) It’s a pretty good name. So who knows why I chose Craig and Brian, but Brian is the name of his Anchorman [local newsman] character.  So when Paul signed on, he was like, “Just to avoid any crossover or confusion between the two, can we change it?” And I was like, “Sure, that’s fine.” And then he came up with the idea for the name Austin. Brian is an excellent name, but for this character, Austin is better.

Instead of I Love You, Man’s preoccupation with Rush, Paul’s weatherman character introduces Craig to Slipknot. Did you have to write them a letter?

I never wrote them a letter, but as an admirer of what they do, I would still like to write them a letter. Slipknot wasn’t even in the script; it was just an editing thing. I knew that there would be a “punk song,” but I always imagined it being something that’s not quite punk. It speaks to the character of Craig. He’s trying to get into what Austin likes, but he isn’t doing it quite right. So I love that song and put it in the edit, and thank God I had financiers that believed in it to get a little extra money so we could have it in there.

Did Paul appreciate the fact that the movie’s Marvel commentary wasn’t really tied to any of his scenes? Craig was quite serious about maintaining a spoiler-free zone at all times.

Again, we didn’t really talk about it too much. He clearly read the script, and there was one scene where Craig says to him, “We should go see the new Marvel.” But we honestly didn’t talk about it too much. Paul clearly gets the irony and the playfulness involved, but Craig is also a character who loves these things. I’m not putting them down in any way, and neither is the character. He’s just a fan of these things and loves them.

Resenting politicians is commonplace, but did you ever come up with an explanation for why Austin started a band that’s named after his disdain for the mayor? 

In the script, I definitely alluded to some general things that we could catch on, but nothing specific. It was stuff that we could project onto with our own resentments toward politicians.

Austin has a get-together that goes south due to a boxing mishap with Craig, and I’ve been to a gathering where the exact same situation unfolded, only no bars of soap were involved. 

No way! 

Yeah, someone hit someone else too hard, and the mood of the evening was completely ruined. There was also another occasion where a friend walked into a glass patio door, but it didn’t shatter like Craig’s collision.

(Laughs.) That’s incredible.

Did Tim actually go to town on some Irish Spring or whatever it was?

That was white chocolate! It wasn’t brutal. After a couple takes, Tim was like, “This is pretty good, actually.” So he really liked the “soap,” and I went to great lengths to make sure we didn’t give him real soap, which almost happened. (Laughs.)

Craig’s Subway hallucination. If you couldn’t clear Subway, what was your backup option?

I wrote it expecting I would need to clear it, and my producers, surprisingly, were like, “Subway is all in.” So I would’ve just made up some sandwich place that reminded us of Subway or Quiznos or something else that’s familiar. But the fact that they fully were in was a dream come true. It was amazing.

Craig’s go-to brand of clothing is called Ocean View Dining. Is there a real-life comp for that?

No, I didn’t have a comparison. I just liked the name. It was something I thought of a few years earlier, and when this idea came up, I was like, “Oh, I could use that.” When you go to thrift stores, you see all these random brands of clothes, and you’re like, “This was someone’s business idea.” So I’ve always been fascinated by that, and I liked the idea that Craig found a certain brand of clothes that makes him feel good. No one’s ever heard of it, but I think we can all relate to a certain brand that works for us. So it just comes from trying to illustrate that he’s a man of habits.

I have fond memories of seeing movies like There’s Something About Mary, American Pie and The Hangover with raucous crowds in theaters. But then the genre all but disappeared at the box office, as people were getting their comedy through various web sites, social media and Marvel movies. Do you think comedy can return to its former glory at the box office someday? Was your TIFF premiere an indicator of that? 

Absolutely. It’s clear that audiences are so desperate to have a collective experience. I wrote the movie because it just felt organic to me, and then the TIFF experience was really psychedelic. To have people laugh in a room like that to something we made is something I haven’t felt since Borat. It’s been so long. Laughing in a room with a bunch of strangers is such a beautiful, necessary thing in our atomized, isolated lives, and this is a bonus feature of the movie. Thank God for A24 putting it into theaters. We get a chance to have this collective experience with even more strangers, and hopefully, they’re all aligned and laughing together. So it’s necessary, and we’re so desperate for it.

You and Tim have already re-teamed on something else?

Yeah, Tim and I were friends before the movie, so that’s what made it easy to get this script to him and whatnot. But thankfully, he seemed to have a good experience on the movie and asked me to direct a pilot that’s been picked up [to series] by HBO. We start shooting [The Chair Company] in a month or so. [Note: This interview was conducted on March 31.]

Do you have other feature ideas in various stages at the moment?

Yeah, I’m writing stuff and actively working every day on what the next thing will be. It’s an interesting, exciting, strange time, for sure. But I want to stay on this path of pushing comedy into hopefully new directions. I don’t know if I’m doing it, but that’s the goal.

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Friendship is now playing in movie theaters nationwide.